4. Idris
Idris
Theo is tucked between us on the library sofa, unwilling to let either of us farther than arm’s reach since Garrett started talking about placement.
He’s wrapped in one of Sloane’s hoodies and Dr. Mercer’s blanket, holding onto both of us.
He’s exhausted enough that his eyes keep closing, but every time the house creaks, they open again.
Sloane’s voice breaks the silence first, rough and low. “I’m calling Kade.”
“No,” I say, and the word tastes like blood because I want Kade in Garrett’s devices, accounts, phone, and every locked piece of his life. “Not before Zana tells us where the line is.”
“The line is wherever Callie is.” Sloane turns on me, and Theo flinches between us before Sloane finishes the breath.
The rage falls off his face so fast it leaves grief naked underneath.
“Fuck. Sorry, sweetheart. Shit, I’m sorry.
” He lowers himself onto the sofa like his knees have stopped trusting him and slides a hand over Theo’s hair, careful now, every movement gentled by shame.
“I’m not mad at you. I’m not. I’m just—”
“Scared,” Theo says softly. His voice is small from the crash, but the sentence is whole. “You’re scared and it’s loud.”
Sloane’s eyes close. His hand trembles once against Theo’s hair before he steadies it. “Yeah. I’m scared.”
Theo’s chest gives a broken little rumble.
It isn’t a true purr. It catches and stutters, a thin, damaged vibration that makes my vision blur because he’s trying to calm us.
He’s sitting here with his heat cut short, his body aching, his heart searching for a woman Garrett has turned into a violation, and still he’s trying to soothe the Alphas so the room stops shaking around him.
I kneel in front of the sofa because standing over him feels wrong. “Theo, don’t do that for us.”
“I can’t stop it,” he whispers, looking embarrassed and frightened by his own body. “It starts when you both get like this.”
Sloane makes a sound under his breath and bends over Theo, pressing his mouth to the crown of his head. “I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m so sorry.”
I put one hand on Theo’s knee and the other on Sloane’s wrist until both of them are under my touch. My phone vibrates on the low table. Zana’s name lights the screen, and Sloane reaches for it before I can. I catch his hand, not hard, but firmly enough that his eyes snap to mine. “Let me.”
He swallows once and nods, jaw clenched so tight I can hear the shift of his teeth.
I answer on speaker. “Change of plans, Zana. We need to have this at the house. Theo isn’t comfortable moving right now, and we’re not leaving him.”
Zana doesn’t ask me to explain. There is paper moving on her end, a clipped inhale, then her voice, awake and sharp in the way seasoned lawyers sound when the situation has finally become as bad as they suspected.
“I’m leaving now. Do not call Garrett. Do not call Calliope again until I’ve seen what you have.
Do not call campus, Bellwether, police, colleagues, friends, or anyone whose name you found in an email signature.
Tell Sloane that includes old numbers he thinks might still work. ”
Sloane leans toward the phone, his grief twisting instantly into fury. “I felt terror before the bond cut off. I’m not sitting here politely while she’s alone somewhere thinking we did this.”
“No,” Zana says, without softness. “You’re sitting there strategically because Garrett is counting on the feral Alpha version of your love. Give him that, and he’ll use it to keep Theo, bury Callie, and make every question you ask look like harassment.”
Sloane’s lips pull back from his teeth. Theo’s broken purr starts again, weaker this time, and Sloane hears it. He shuts his mouth like it hurts him. His hand slides over Theo’s back in slow, shaking circles while I take the phone off speaker long enough to say, “We’ll wait.”
Zana arrives thirty-eight minutes later with a legal bag over one shoulder and her hair twisted at the back of her neck like she put it up while driving. She pauses at the threshold when I open the door.
“She’s not here,” Zana says quietly.
Sloane makes a sound from the library, and I step aside before he can come to the door like an accusation. “No.”
Zana comes in without taking off her coat. She looks down the hall toward the library, then back at me. “Garrett?”
“Gone to work. Said we’d discuss Theo’s placement when he returned.”
Her eyes harden. “Of course he did.”
I lead her to the library, Theo shifting when Zana enters to make room for me beside him. I sit on his other side anyway. He settles against me with a tiny exhale, and Sloane’s hand finds the back of his neck.
Zana doesn’t sit immediately. Her gaze moves over the evidence spread across the table. “Tell me the current facts,” Zana says. “Not conclusions. Facts.”
“Callie went to her interview,” Sloane says, each word dragged through his teeth.
“Garrett told us she needed help. He went to her. He came back without her. I felt Callie’s terror through the bond, then she shut it down.
Calls go to voicemail. Messages from her name came in saying she needed time and we should focus on Theo.
Campus wouldn’t tell me anything except that she completed the appointment and left. ”
“Police?” Zana asks, pulling a notebook from her bag.
“I called for a welfare concern.” Sloane’s voice lowers, shame and rage grinding together. “They said she’s an adult and campus saw her leave of her own accord. They warned me about repeated contact if someone requested privacy or no contact. They said it generally, but it didn’t feel general.”
Zana writes that down. “Good. You noticed the wording without assuming we can prove the source yet.”
Sloane laughs once, hollow and humorless, then catches Theo’s flinch and folds immediately. “Fuck. Sorry. I’m sorry, baby.” He presses his mouth to Theo’s temple and keeps it there for a second, eyes shut tight. “I’m trying.”
“I know,” Theo says, but his purr has started again, broken at the edges.
Zana watches that with a grimness I trust more than sympathy. “Theo, I’m going to ask you a few questions. You can answer as much or as little as you want. No one in this room is going to let Garrett come in while I’m asking.”
Theo nods against Sloane’s chest. “Okay.”
“Did you ask Calliope to leave?”
“No.” He turns his face enough to look at Zana. His voice is soft, but it doesn’t break apart. “I asked for her. I called her. She didn’t answer.”
“Did you tell anyone you didn’t want her in the house during your heat?”
Theo’s fingers tighten on my shirt. “No. I wanted her there. I wanted her before the heat opened, and then when it got bad, I still wanted her. Garrett said maybe I was confused because she made me feel safe outside the proper bond structure.”
Sloane’s scent spikes so sharply the lamp beside the sofa rattles. Theo flinches, and Sloane’s face collapses again. “Shit. Sorry. Fuck, Theo, I’m sorry.”
Zana’s pen stops. She looks at Sloane until he drags himself back under control, then at me. “Write down every phrase like that as close to exact as possible. Garrett’s language matters.”
I reach for the legal pad. My hand is steady. I'm proud of that in a distant, hateful way. “He also said Theo’s reactivity toward the head Alpha of record wasn’t sustainable.”
Zana writes longer this time. “There it is.”
“What?” Sloane asks.
“The threat wearing a suit.” Zana sets her bag on the floor and finally sits in the chair opposite us.
“He’s telling you he can make Theo’s placement part of the battlefield.
That means you don’t give him unstable behavior to document.
You don’t break into accounts. You don’t storm campuses.
You don’t go looking for Callie’s friends in person like two Alphas who’ve been told their mate asked for distance. ”
Sloane surges forward. Theo’s hand catches his shirt.
That is the only thing that stops him. “Her friends might know where she is. Mara, maybe, or someone from Briarwick. I don’t have their numbers because Callie handled her life like she was allowed to keep pieces of it, and now I can’t reach a single person who might know if she’s breathing.
So what do you want me to do? Sit here and print fucking timelines? ”
“I want you to stay useful to Callie,” Zana says, and the word useful cuts through the room so sharply that even she hears it.
Her mouth tightens. “I chose that poorly. I want you to stay able to help her. If you go to Briarwick demanding friends’ names after what happened at the sister campus, Garrett can point to a pattern.
You went to one campus and frightened staff badly enough that they locked down.
Then you went to another hunting for her contacts.
He turns your search into harassment. He turns your panic into evidence that Callie needed protection from you. ”
Sloane’s face goes white under the fury. “She doesn’t need protection from me.”
“I believe you.” Zana leans forward, voice cutting lower.
“But belief isn't the operating currency right now. Paper is. Procedure is. Whoever got to the system first is speaking through it, and right now the system is speaking in a voice that harms you and isolates Callie. I’ll reach out to the campus in a legal capacity. Carefully. In writing where possible. Through proper channels. If they refuse or flag the inquiry, that tells us something too. But neither of you is going to give them a second feral Alpha visit to put in a memo.”
The room goes quiet except for Theo’s uneven breathing.
Sloane looks at his phone again, and I know what he sees because I see it in my own mind: Callie’s contact, her name, her face if he has the photo attached, the impossible closeness of the call button.
His thumb twitches. Theo watches it, then looks away like hope hurts to witness.